It was a bit of a stock market fair yesterday. Europe got its foot in the door by giving up all its gains in the wake of a deadly session. Wall Street closed sharply higher, although the indices made a brief foray into the red early in the day. Classic patterns have been shattering over the past few days: we are in the midst of a major crisis.

Will the expansion of the coronavirus be halted by the arrival of spring and warmer temperatures? Will Donald Trump announce an XXL support plan? Will Europe be able to provide an adequate response to the challenges posed by the coronavirus? Will the Tokyo Olympics be cancelled? How long will the high yield corporate debt market hold without bad news? These are the types of questions that are circulating in the business media this morning. Still a lot of questions and still very few answers.

Action by the political and monetary authorities is not only necessary, but must be taken quickly because businesses are already suffering from the situation. And it is not the revival of Chinese industry that will solve all the problems, far from it. Investors have placed great hopes in the support and recovery policies because it is always the curves of the virus' spread that dictate the trend, whether or not the treatment of the crisis by the government is absurd. For a bit, we would forget that oil collapsed last weekend. However, the two crises are coming together, for example for the oil industry, which will be faced with a simultaneous shock of supply and demand.

Important announcements are expected in the coming days: US retaliation, ECB decision. It was the Bank of England that was acting today. It has decided cut its rates from 0.75 to 0.25% and announced a plan to support SMEs.

Today on the agenda in the United States, we have February inflation and oil inventories.